Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Freedom of Speech: An Illusion?

Last week, I was called out by both classmates and family members alike on one of my more malicious posts. This post, while for the most part true, admittedly had a rather palpable slant on it, leaning more in favor of my sister's condemnation over her redemption. I suppose the dialogue following the semicolon in the post's title wasn't explored thoroughly enough. I spent much of my time ranting a blue streak on how my sister irritates me, while ignoring her more amiable qualities, for which I am now more keen to realize.

So this brings about an interesting point; do I have a freedom of speech? To say as I please? To say whatever may be on my mind? The answer is not quite. While I sense very few individuals read my blog, with an occasional spike here and there, I am still not all that free when it comes to the content and the nature by which I communicate that content, especially given that my parents seem to have a newfound web destination in an attempt to keep me in line: this very blog.

I think when I escape their wrath, I will be more able to exercise my freedom of speech, with my next meal already paid for, and impossible to be arbitrarily taken away for the sake of punishment. But to be honest, I think it's extraordinarily unfair that my parents forced me to remove that post no matter how destructive it may have been. The truth in all writing is what matters most, and so if they had instead asked me that I modify the post so that it didn't outright discriminate my sister, I would have been understanding. Though, they reasoned that it would hurt my chances of getting into college, or a place in the ever-shrinking workforce. Paranoia of an impending "Big Brother" figure, I presume? Silly.

So in all, it appears any malicious content I write cannot go unaccounted for.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Why I Care if you Comment or Like my Statuses

FOR ages, I have decried Facebook for being inconsequential, and a superficial way of "communicating" with friends. But since then, I've somewhat come around on it, looking at it as a way to share--to share YouTube videos, music, blogs, or other links--particularly, to share things that I have made to the greater public, such as my YouTube videos, my music, my blogs, etc.

While for the most part my Facebook status feed is cluttered to the brim with lousy rap music, miscellaneous sports plays and interviews, and political or celebrity scandals links, I take the opportunity for sharing to share my own content, rather than mainstream, already-seen-it, mass-market, mass-media garbage, I give you something a little more unique, niche, if you will, more interesting.

So in the same vein with my statuses, I painstakingly come up with witty, and largely, strange ones that I hope will provoke thought and wonder. But it seems my intentions are often ignored by most, if not all of my friends. Either they don't have time to think, or are rarely ever willing to do so, my statuses are looked upon as an afterthought.

People with numerous comments or "likes" following a status boast this as a point of pride, or even, popularity. I wouldn't doubt that I've fallen out of favor among friends given how unwilling they are to read my unique and unusual statuses and content.

So is it that people simply want more of the same when it comes to Facebook statuses? Or do they want originality, but the issue is more that they rarely know how to respond to their perplexing messages?

Do people truly want a million Kanye West, or Ke$ha song lyrics in their status feeds, or do they want intriguing, existential queries that provoke and force growth in us?